[Info-vax] Free Pascal for VMS ?

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 5/12/2018 10:57 AM, seasoned_geek wrote:
> The x86 market segment is being consumed by ARM from the bottom and
> the IBM Z-box from the top. Once a server farm exceeds some certain
> size, the power consumption and cost begins to justify replacing
> hundreds of thousands of x86 servers with a z-box.
It is not.

Currently ARM in desktop market is a disaster and ARM in server market
is mostly something talked about.

And z sales are not that big and there is no reason to expect major
growth.

> Here is some light reading for those who choose to click the links. I have cut and pasted some of the more interesting snippets for those who choose not to follow the links.
> 
> https://siliconangle.com/blog/2017/03/09/microsoft-paves-way-arm-based-server-chips-data-center/
> 
> First, the company said it’s collaborating with Cavium Inc. to run Microsoft Azure cloud workloads on Cavium’s ARM-based server processors.
> The announcements suggests Microsoft is making a significant shift towards ARM processors
> 
> 
> https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/china-driving-arm-based-server-market-2015-10/
> PayPal found, says Williams, that using ARM instead of Intel delivered 900% higher node density, 85% lower power consumption at a 45% lower acquisition cost. Total cost of ownership of an ARM-based system is 35% lower than an x86-based system, he said.
> 
> http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/design/cloudflare-bets-arm-servers-it-expands-its-data-center-network
> 
> To keep further expansion affordable, Cloudflare is planning a massive architectural change. The company will soon start deploying ARM servers in its data centers, Prince said, expecting that the alternative to x86 will be cheaper to buy and to keep running due to their lower power requirements and to the nature of Cloudflare’s workload.
> 
> The company has already moved away from Intel SSDs after finding the performance wasn’t enough for its needs. (All Cloudflare servers use SSDs to cache data from the web sites it protects.) “I’d give better-than-even odds that by Q4 this year we will no longer spend any money with Intel,” Prince told us.
> 
> “We think we're now at a point where we can go one hundred percent to ARM. In our analysis, we found that even if Intel gave us the chips for free, it would still make sense to switch to ARM, because the power efficiency is so much better.”
> 
> http://www.electronicdesign.com/embedded-revolution/are-intel-processors-apple-s-mac-chopping-block
> 
> On April 2, news spread quickly of the rumor that Apple plans to replace Intel processors with its own internally designed Arm-based processors for its Mac platform.

That was discussed here as well.

> https://venturebeat.com/2018/02/05/intels-former-president-leads-arm-based-server-chip-maker-ampere/
> 
> https://www.computerworld.com/article/3005816/servers/server-vendors-tap-arm-chips-to-give-users-alternative-to-intel.html
> 
> Five computer makers have announced servers with ARM processors that will challenge x86 systems in the mainstream market. The systems are largely for Internet and cloud workloads and have the 48-core Cavium ThunderX chip, which is based on 64-bit ARM architecture.
> 
> The servers from Gigabyte, Inventec, Wistron, Penguin Computing and E4 Computer Engineering are based on designs commonly used in x86 servers, but have ARM processors. An interesting twist in some new servers is the ability to also use Nvidia's Tesla graphics processors, adding extra processing punch for graphics, engineering and other high-performance computing applications.

There are lots of talk.

And it could happen.

But if it happens then it will take time.

> Throughput is a distinct mainframe characteristic, as it supports
 > large numbers of simultaneous transactions and massive I/O without
 > slowing down. An x86/ARM server loses efficiency at >20% total load,

I would think most people have seen x86-64 servers behave perfect
with load over 20%.

 >                                                               and
 > will slow down when any single component is overloaded; for example when
 > its CPU is running at 100%, or memory is exhausted, or the hard disk
 > thrashes. This doesn’t happen on a mainframe,

Of course it does.

Mainframes can not exceed whatever CPU, memory or IO rate that the
hardware provides.

 > which maintains peak performance up to 90% load.

Weird. I my book peak performance is 100% load.

Arne